


Lost Boys Series

by knotted_rose



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Incest, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-12
Updated: 2011-03-11
Packaged: 2017-10-16 21:31:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knotted_rose/pseuds/knotted_rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bad case and the boys need to lose themselves to find themselves.</p><p>First posted 15 February 2005</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lost Boys

**Author's Note:**

> **Angst level:** 6-7, based on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the puppy gets lost, has some adventures, and comes home, and 10 being the puppy gets lost, is maimed and tortured, then killed one block from his home.
> 
>  **Notes and Warnings:** Don's POV. Incest. This is not a happy Don/Charlie story. This is about power and losing one's innocence and very broken boys. If all of that is not your thing, don't bother reading any further. Pay attention to the angst level, above. I'm not joking.

Don's successful in his chosen field. His superiors have shown their appreciation for him by promoting him, giving him his own team. His father is proud of him.

Then Charlie comes into the picture. The genius brother. The special one. The one they soon can't succeed without.

Don doesn't always hate Charlie. Most of the time, he appreciates the help that his brother gives them, the edge that he gives Don's team.

But Charlie doesn't know all the aspects of Don's job -- he must be protected, sheltered, always the younger brother that Don has to watch out for. He can't ever know the pressures Don is under, the things Don has had to do in the line of duty, the men Don has killed.

Sometimes, though, Don wants to strip away Charlie's innocence, tear away that veil and make Charlie swim in the blood for a while.

#

Don knows that Charlie is gay.

Everyone believes that Charlie is just shy around pretty women because he ignores them harder and works more at being a math head.

What they don't see is that Charlie gets that same way around pretty men too. Maybe they don't want to see it. Maybe they aren't trained to see it, trained like Don is.

Or maybe they just haven't stood at the back of Charlie's class waiting for him to finish a lecture. They haven't seen how Charlie talks with his students, how he holds himself, how close he gets sometimes, how he ignores personal space.

He's never inappropriate. He's never done anything to jeopardize his teaching position. There's never been a hint of a rumor that would put his security clearance into question either.

But still, Don knows.

#

If Don has to hazard a guess, he would say that Charlie has a type.

Tall. Dark hair, dark eyes. Muscled. Squarish-jaw, clean shaven. Well-groomed.

In other words, guys who look like Don.

#

Don knows that Charlie doesn't drink. His brother can get lost in his numbers, in calculations and equations and analysis. But he doesn't lose himself.

Can't? Or won't?

Don wants to find out.

He knows that he shouldn't experiment on his brother. It isn't nice. It isn't right. But he still has to know.

Has to know if Charlie has a matching set of images to Don's. Has to find out if Charlie wants to see Don in control as badly as Don wants to see Charlie lose control.

So he invites Charlie over for drinks after a tough case. Charlie says no a few times before he finally says yes.

#

Words don't suddenly come easily to Charlie when he's drunk. He doesn't suddenly pick up the social skills that he's always lacked. He doesn't suddenly become _human._

He does become very tactile.

He takes Don's hand, strokes the back of it, and talks of the fractal pattern of veins under the skin, the multitudes of nerve endings in the fingertips.

He lays with his head resting on Don's thigh and gazes up, his face shining with simplicity -- all the mathematical computations melted away -- looking younger than Don's felt in many, many years.

And Don can't take that innocence. Not now. Not with Charlie looking at him like that, looking up to him for the first time, eyes wide, like it means something that Don's his older brother, the totality of Charlie's world.

So Don just brushes his hand across Charlie's eyes, forcing him to close them, letting his brother rest, being his brother's keeper.

The time hasn't come, yet, to break Charlie's trust.

#

They're in a holding pattern for more than a month; bad case, invite and drinks, Charlie touching and stroking and falling asleep on Don without anything else ever happening.

Then comes the Tennyson killer, the one who rapes children, kills them and leaves pieces of poetry pinned to their clothing. The one that Charlie stays awake for _days_ trying to figure out the pattern. The one who ends up being a duo; one who fucks and one who kills.

Afterward, Charlie shows up at Don's place without an invite. The full brood is on, and the beer isn't softening Charlie's jaw any. He sits at the end of the couch hunched in on himself.

So this time Don touches first, strokes the backs of his fingers along the curve of Charlie's face. He isn't surprised when wet eyes turn toward him and his arms are suddenly overflowing with a weeping brother.

There isn't anything he can do but hold on and ignore the tears that also quietly drip down his own face.

Don is sort of prepared for this. He's read the books, knows the theories about the need for release after the types of stresses they face. He's done the requisite shrink visits after his own regrettable time in the field, watching good men go down.

But he also knows that Charlie isn't like the rest of them. What will work for the others won't work for his brother.

He isn't surprised that Charlie recognizes this as well.

It doesn't take long for the tears to stop. But the numbers don't come, the impossible N vs. NP doesn't rear its ugly head.

Instead, Charlie kisses him.

#

"Can't do this Charlie," Don warns, though he hasn't let go of his brother. Can't will his fingers to leave warm skin and stubbled jaw.

"It's wrong," Charlie confirms. He doesn't let go either.

They stare at each other, neither moving. Neither able to break their universe apart.

"It won't help," Don adds. Sex never helps, not in the long term. It's a great distraction in the short term, a reaffirmation of life even. But it doesn't chase away the nightmares. It can't keep the pointing ghosts of the victims that you weren't fast enough or clever enough to save.

Charlie looks off in the distance for a moment and Don wonders if they've dodged the bullet this time. He knows that it doesn't really matter if they have, because it's just _this time._ There will be more times when they're right back here, looking down the barrel again.

Finally Charlie turns his dark eyes back to Don.

"It _will_ help," he states. "It will help me." Simple as that. Black and white. 1+1=2. And selfish -- selfish as Charlie has always been, as he's been allowed to be, all his life.

"Charlie--"

"Take me out of my head, Don."

"But--"

"Now."

And Don, the good son, the one who always did what his parents wanted, the one who fits in, the one his superiors trust and his father is proud of and who is good at his job -- Don, the one who wants even when he knows he shouldn't -- Don is the one who breaks and leans forward and puts his mouth on his brother's and kisses like he'll never stop.

#

The kiss is wrong. It's teeth and stubble and biting, when Don's only ever known softness and care. It's a battle for dominance, and Don's constantly reminded that Charlie isn't a girl, isn't softer and sweeter.

It's the hottest thing he's ever experienced

He pushes down on Charlie, gently, trying to get the upper hand. Charlie resists, pushes back, kisses harder. It's almost like it's a fight. They never wrestled as kids; Don was always bigger and stronger, and Charlie was smart enough never to try. But they're wrestling now, and though Charlie has grown, Don has training.

Don ignores the way Charlie is tweaking one of his nipples, sending ripples of desire sparking through his chest, as well as how Charlie's other hand is forcing their torsos closer. He still pulls one, then the other of Charlie's hands away from his body, gets them up above Charlie's head and grabs both wrists with just one of his hands. Now, Charlie is at his mercy and Don kisses and nibbles along his jaw, down his throat. Sucks at his Adam's apple, gets a surprising howl in reply.

Charlie still fights, though, twists and arches. When Don feels Charlie's erection against his thigh, his groin, he realizes that the fight isn't about getting away. It's about getting closer, about need and desire and fucking.

About letting the lust drive you out of your head. About losing everything, even if it's just imagined innocence.

#

Don moves them from the couch to the bed, because though sometimes it is about cats and dogs and about being able to handcuff your partner, and though a part of his brain really wants to force Charlie to his hands and knees and fuck him on the floor, he isn't going to do that to his little brother.

Not now. Not ever.

The fighting continues after they're naked, clothes ripped away in haste. Charlie bites, hard, something Don's never appreciated. Don swears at him and he uses his training and longer frame and more muscular ability to keep Charlie under him, keep Charlie's teeth away from the tender parts of his skin.

At some point Don has Charlie pinned, hands above his head again and crossed at the wrists and held there and they're panting and still rubbing against each other, two cocks in a groove, and he has to ask, "What do you want Charlie?"

When his brother spreads his legs and wraps them around Don's hips and arches up, Don doesn't falter. He knows if he were a better person, he would.

But he wants what Charlie wants. And he wants it now.

One-handed he reaches to the bedside table, yanks open the drawer and spills it out on the bed. He has the lube his last fourth-date failure brought over -- something cherry-scented that creeped him out because it smelled like kid's cough syrup, but seems all the more appropriate now.

He's never done this before. Not with a man. But he's done it with a woman, knows the principle must be the same. And for all the squirming Charlie's been doing, he relaxes into the push, opens for Don in a way that Don never imagined.

Now he falters, looking down, seeing himself connected to Charlie, in Charlie, in such an intimate way.

All Charlie does is rear up and bite him, fueling Don's anger again.

It doesn't take much more before Don's gloved up and pushing in, driving himself into his brother's body, relishing the brief spasm of pain on Charlie's face.

#

All this heat _can't_ be from the body beneath him. It has to, in part, be from the shame of what they're doing.

There may be wonder as well, but Don can't let himself remember that. Can't lean down and kiss Charlie kindly once he's sheathed to the hilt in his brother's ass. Neither of them will thank him for it in the morning.

Instead he pulls out, then drives into Charlie, hard thrusts, slow, with measured words. "We're _not_ doing this _again,_ not _ever,_ Charlie." Don's hands hold Charlie's shoulders, hold him down, hold him still, even though Charlie's not fighting like he was, even though Charlie is moving with him in some kind of synchronized duet, pushing against his thrusts with a strength that kicks Don in the gut every time he notices it.

Charlie nods, the air forced out of him in grunts.

" _Never_ again."

"Promise," Charlie says, then his breath hitches and he throws his head back and Don just _has_ to bite him on his Adam's apple, has to make Charlie howl again.

#

They come quickly, too driven to do anything else. Don makes sure Charlie comes first. It seems that Charlie was only doing what he liked having done, so Don indulges his brother and bites collarbone, nipples, lips, loving how well Charlie takes the punishment, how it feels to give it.

Don will never admit how much seeing Charlie orgasm as he does, so uninhibited, so marked, so vulnerable, is what pushes him over the edge.

He pulls out as soon as he can, collapses on the bed out of easy touching range. He'd like to sleep. He has bites and scratches everywhere, and maybe even locks of hair have been pulled out. He's sweaty and he stinks and wants to shower in water hot enough to strip his skin off.

Charlie looks like a debauched angel, dark and no longer innocent, laying spread out on Don's bed, his breathing just getting back to normal. It's another thing that Don is never going to allow himself to remember.

After a silence that's so long Don thinks he may actually be able to sleep without cleaning up, Charlie leans up on one elbow, rakes his eyes over Don's long form, then says, "Never again."

"Never," Don replies. He's too broken now to even think about it.

Charlie just nods, rolls over and off the bed. Don hears the shower start. Charlie pops his head back in the room.

"Thanks," he says, not meeting Don's eye. Then he walks off again.

Don plans on being asleep by the time Charlie is finished. He will not watch his brother collecting the clothes that Don ripped away. He will not see the bruises and marks that he made. He will not witness whatever remorse or longing or suffering that Charlie is feeling over their actions.

Nothing happened between them. Nothing at all. It's just a lost afternoon when maybe not just Charlie's innocence was misplaced.

{end}


	2. Reflecting Boys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not about Don. It's all about Charlie. Or so Don tells himself.
> 
> First posted 18 March 2005

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Angst level:** 7, based on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the puppy gets lost, has some adventures, and comes home, and 10 being the puppy gets lost, is maimed and tortured, then killed one block from his home.
> 
>  **Notes and Warnings:** Don's POV. Incest. This is not a happy Don/Charlie story. This is about very broken boys. If that is not your thing, don't bother reading any further. Pay attention to the angst level, above. I'm not joking.

Everything is fine afterward.

There are no awkward silences, no easily misconstrued touches, no flirting or hurting. There is work, eating dinner together with Alan and the occasional beer at their childhood home.

There are no more evening or weekend get-togethers at Don's apartment, no gently-tactile drunken Charlie, no more brother's keeper.

No more bite-shaped bruises on Don's torso.

He throws away the sheets that were on his bed because even after he washes them he imagines he can still smell . . . something, something hot and shameful, sinful and consuming. Yet even after he replaces them he still wakes, half-hard and aching, to dreams that he does not, _will not,_ remember.

It's all going to be okay, though everything moves in slow motion for a while. Don feels that he's grown heavy, as if he's added a second skin. He eventually stops worrying that he's going to shatter at a comment, joke, or even a smile from Charlie.

He doesn't know what Charlie thinks.

He doesn't allow himself to consider what Charlie _needs,_ because that way lays madness -- as well as missing afternoons and broken innocence.

#

Then comes the train bomber. Don doesn't think about what happened, why he went to the train he did, until later, when Charlie is purposefully so focused on Amita. Don even pushes him along that path, knowing that it will be good for him.

However, sometime that evening Don gets this _look_ from Charlie, a laser-intense stare that both burns and freezes. It's only then that Don realizes Charlie's concentrated attention is really a distraction. It's how Charlie always operates: he can't deal with what's actually happening so he works on something else. N versus P.

In the kitchen, cleaning up after everyone else is gone and Alan has gone to bed, Don asks, "What's up buddy?"

The overhead light isn't on, so Charlie's eyes seem black and fathomless when he turns to toward Don.

"Nothing."

"That doesn't sound like a 'nothing'. And that isn't a 'nothing' face either."

Charlie clenches the dishtowel he's holding, and Don is suddenly not thinking of Charlie fisting the sheets of his bed, head thrown back and howling with passion.

"I sent you to that train track."

Don hears the other words -- _I sent you to die._

"You did your job," Don says as brusquely as he can. "Then I did mine."

"No."

Don marvels at the black and white of the statement, how it reflects Charlie's world.

"David and Terry, _they_ did their jobs. They were there to back you up, even if they disobeyed your orders. I, I just . . . " Charlie's voice wanders off as he looks at the floor, at the door, anywhere but at Don.

"Charlie--" Don starts to say, one hand reaching out but not touching.

"No, Don," Charlie interrupts. "I keep sending you into danger. I know you can do your job and do it well. But I hate that it's _me_ putting you at risk."

"It isn't you," Don says. "You aren't the one with a double-load of C-4 strapped to your back." _Shit that was the wrong thing to say._ Don makes himself continue. "You aren't the one wanting to break Internet encryption. You aren't the one building skyscrapers destined to fall down. You aren't the one raping and killing kids."

Charlie's eyes go wide at the mention of that case. Don breaches the space between them and grips Charlie's bicep hard, afraid that his little brother is going to bolt.

"You're the one saving lives. You're the one who's _helping._ Without you, the bad guys would win."

Charlie looks up at Don, eyes still bottomless. It's only then that Don realizes how close he's pulled Charlie, how their chests are almost touching as they breath, how the scent of his brother is washing over him.

How he can already almost taste Charlie again.

Don finds his hand tightening on his brother's arm. Charlie glances down at it, then back up. He's grinning now, smiling with white, sharp teeth.

Teeth that bite.

Don shivers. Points across his skin blossom with memories of pain that wasn't pain, bruises that didn't hurt but did make his groin ache.

"Never again," Don whispers even as he finds himself leaning down, leaning toward his brother, strange attractors pushing dissimilar objects together.

Charlie gazes up at him solemnly. "Promise," he whispers back.

Don groans as the pressure builds and the universe starts to split apart and he _has_ to kiss his brother.

He can't not.

#

 _This is all for Charlie,_ Don tells himself as they make their way to Charlie's bedroom. _This isn't for me._ He's the good brother, the responsible one.

He's the one who almost died, the one who needs to make it up to Charlie.

Don ignores the little voice inside his head asking impossible questions, like if that's the case, then why is _he_ the one so impatient to rip Charlie's shirt over his head, so anxious to find smooth skin and mark it?

They can't make any noise, not like they did before. Alan is sleeping just down the hallway. Don forces Charlie's own hand into his mouth to muffle the cries as Don bites and bites again.

Finally they're in Charlie's room, standing at the edge of the bed, half naked, both of them panting, trembling. Don undoes Charlie's pants and shoves them down, then shoves his brother back onto the bed.

Charlie is as hard as he is.

Without a word or another look into too familiar eyes, Don leans down to lick at his brother's cock.

Oh god. He's taking Charlie's dick into his mouth and _liking_ it. It smells musky and the skin feels soft against his lips, his tongue. The taste burns into him, saturates his cells, sinks through bone into marrow. He's never going to rid himself of it. He's going to smell it on himself forever, and right now, he can't really care. Not when Charlie's making that whimpering sound as Don carefully scrapes his teeth along his length. Not when the taste is bitter and sweet and more heady than champagne. Not when Charlie jerks and practically levitates off the bed when Don brings up his hands and starts to gently squeeze Charlie's balls.

But Charlie isn't fighting Don like he did the first time. He isn't pushing against him or wrestling or trying to get more. He's simply taking what Don is giving him.

And one half of an equation is never enough.

Don finally pushes himself up off his brother's body, shadows hiding the bruises he's already made, bleeding them into one. Looks up into Charlie's bottomless eyes.

Looks for a reflection of his passion.

"What do you want Don?" Charlie asks.

Don knows his brother isn't unaffected -- he's panting and his cock is straining and hard. But the coolness in his voice is wrong. It freezes Don, stops him in his tracks.

He doesn't want to think about it -- can't admit Charlie's question into his cracked and bleeding world. This isn't about _him._ This can't ever be about him. This has to be about Charlie or everything else in his life is a lie.

He shakes his head. He can't continue, move back and, oh god, suck his brother's cock again. He can't move forward. His muscles have solidified -- tighter than marble -- and he's afraid that he'll shatter if he moves.

So he lets Charlie take over. Allows Charlie to pull him down for a kiss that's more about comfort than lust, shivers as Charlie's warm hands caress his chest, back, hip, easily moves his head to one side as Charlie starts to nuzzle his neck.

Then Charlie bites him. Hard.

#

 _Use the pain as a focus._ One of his teachers at Quantico had actually said that to him once. He'd thought it was bullshit at the time. He suspects it's still bullshit.

But it sure helps now. Helps him strip the rest of the clothes off himself. Helps him roughly prepare Charlie.

Helps him slide into the sinful heat of his brother's ass without burning to ashes, dissolving into dust.

Charlie already has his hands above his head, wrists crossed, as if tied. He doesn't make a sound, just heady gasps, as Don bites and thrusts and does his best to make sure he's not the only one _broken_ by this.

That this isn't just for him.

The shadows still hide more than they reveal, but Don fills in the missing spaces. He can see that Charlie's mouth is open, and decides that he's slack-jawed with lust. He hears the stifled moans his brother's making and assumes that they'd be howls if they were somewhere else. He feels the sweat under his hands, tastes the salt as he bites again, and chooses to believe that it's more than just friction causing it.

Charlie comes with a yelp, almost as if his orgasm surprises him. Don buries his face in Charlie's shoulder and comes soon afterwards, his vision dimming as he pours everything into his brother -- his well-being, his last shred of hope. He refuses to acknowledge that the whimpering moan he hears comes from his own soul.

Don doesn't pass out but he has a few groggy moments when he isn't quite aware of what's happening. When he does resurface he finds Charlie's holding him, stroking his face, petting his side.

He tells himself again that this is what Charlie needs, that Charlie wanted this last time and Don refused to give it to him. He'd already given, taken, so much, too much.

This time, though, he lays still and listens to his brother's heartbeat slow down, his breathing steady out.

Listens as the creaking remains of his world try to reassemble into a broken whole.

#

 _Never again._ Don promises himself. _Never again._

He denies that every lock has a key. Every knot has a loop just loose enough to slip through, slip out of.

Instead, he tells himself it's like his mom said when she caught them fighting. It didn't matter who started it.

He was going to finish it. Had finished it.

Was never going to start it again.

The bruises will fade. There is enough scotch in the world to drown out the still lingering taste of Charlie. Don is going to be able to sleep without waking to nightmares or evil, betraying dreams.

And everything is going to be just fine.

{end}


	3. Two-Faced Boys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don is hurting. Charlie is hurting. They both try to get relief.
> 
> Originally posted 22 March 2007

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after "Janus List"
> 
> Notes and Warnings: Don's POV. Incest. Angst. This is not a happy Don/Charlie story.

Don doesn't return to Charlie often or easily. And always, it's Charlie's doing, or at least that's what he tells himself. It's the cancer-worm of him that's sunk deep into Don's heart that tugs and pulls and tears him to pieces until he returns it to its source, and Don sinks deep into his brother. It isn't Don who wants or needs.

Though he does lust.

There are others as well, women with whom Don can be funny and gentle. There's Robin and Liz and more whose names Don can't quite place now.

He never bites them. Never fucks them hard, or in the ass.

Never mistakenly calls them the wrong name, except in his head or his worst nightmares.

#

Don holds it together after Colby confesses, well, better than David, who he has to escort from the room, better than Megan, whose tight face makes Don's own skin ache. It isn't until he gets home that he realizes that he's held it together better than Charlie, too, who sits slumped while their father tries to comfort them, one arm wrapped around his stomach as if to protect it against the bile still building there.

Charlie doesn't say much that night. Alan and Don exchange a look, both of them wondering whether the dreaded N vs. NP will rise up and bite Charlie again.

Don wonders if it's his bites Charlie needs that night instead.

When Charlie excuses himself to go to the garage Alan merely nods. Before he goes to bed, though, he tells Donny to go take care of his little brother, as if Don is 13 again. The same resentment washes over Don -- therapy or no, it was too much then and it's too much now and Don almost just leaves, abandons Charlie to himself and his numbers and his own damn recovery -- Don's hurting too and he doesn't see how this will help him.

It's never been about him, though.

And Don is the good son, still the one teachers and parents and little brothers alike rely on, still the one his team will all turn to when they no longer have each other. So Don goes to Charlie, because in spite of it all, or maybe because of it, Charlie is who Don turns to.

Charlie is writing slowly on the board before him -- not the fevered pitch Don and his father feared. He only partially cleaned it off before he started, and the numbers seem to bleed into each other, old equations mating with new ones, forming unknown pairings and unexpected results.

"Hey buddy, whatcha working on?" Don asks after a minute of standing there and Charlie not noticing him.

"I'm trying to determine how many breaking points a man has to have in his life before he turns against his fellow man," Charlie says, his own voice hoarse.

"Charlie -- look -- it's nothing any of us saw."

"You didn't trust him."

"Yeah, but I don't trust anyone," Don says, smiling slightly and trying to lighten the mood.

"You trust me," Charlie says, his voice a wealth of bitterness and pain. "Wait," Charlie says, turning, his dark eyes drilling into Don. He takes three steps across the room until he's almost pressed against Don, the air between them razor thin. "You trust me," Charlie says again, confirmation and curse.

They stare at each other, breathing each other's anger and defiance. Don wants to deny it, but he can't. He does trust Charlie, trusts him not only with his own life, but with his team's lives. With his career. His reputation. Everything he has.

"Tell me, how many breaking points does a man have in his life before he starts wanting to fuck his brother?" Charlie demands as he defiantly leans closer, his chest brushing against Don's.

Don jerks back. The heat of that single touch burns him, makes the hook in his heart twist and bleed. It was a bad idea to come out here. He needs to leave, get away from the knowing look in Charlie's eye, go back to pretending that it never happened, that it wasn't ever going to happen again. . .

"Shhh," Charlie says, reaching out and touching Don's arm, fingers stumbling over unseen wrinkles and scars. "You aren't the only one who's broken," he whispers, his hand sliding up to cup Don's face.

The words tumble out before Don can bite them back. "Buddy, did I--"

"No," Charlie says firmly. "Never you."

"But--"

"No," Charlie says again. He pulls an unresisting Don forward, holding him in a standing hug, something they've never done before, not even when their mother died. Don holds himself stiffly, his arms around his brother. It's comforting and it's not, like the lie Charlie just told. The smell of chalk clings to Charlie's hair, and his curls tickle Don's nose. He's warm and more solid than Don realized, shorter than Liz. Unexpectedly strong.

Yet, it's still his little brother who annoys the shit out of him while making him horny and proud and jealous and angry all at the same time.

Don continues not to resist when Charlie leads him to a cot in the corner and starts to unbutton his shirt. "Never again," Don whispers, litany and required ritual for the acts they are about to commit.

"Promise," Charlie says, kissing him just once before leaning down and anointing skin with teeth

#

It isn't long after that before Charlie's undressed and undone, Don's fingers in his ass, his head thrown back and his body sheened with sweat.

Don isn't sure who's breaking who this time. They're both fighting, twisting and pushing, nearly falling from the narrow cot -- almost as if they're trying to get farther away rather than closer. But he isn't going to lose or get tossed onto the hard concrete floor, he's going to get Charlie where he wants him. He falls heavily onto Charlie's chest as he draws his fingers out, forcing the air from his brother and distracting him while he gloves up. Then it's just one more push, one last thrust into heat and sin that yields like nothing else in Don's life.

Charlie's eyes are close and he's panting, arms obediently crossed at the wrists over his head. Don wonders who holds him like that, but he doesn't ask. Instead he pounds his way through his resentment and his hurt, making the cot shake and Charlie grunt. The bruises on Charlie's chest are already purpling and Don wants to bite Charlie until he bleeds. He wants to throw his own head back and roar.

He wants to sin like this over and over again. It could almost be good.

When Charlie comes with Colby's name on his lips, Don doesn't let himself feel the shock of the double betrayal. He's still the obedient son, and he turns his head away, not meeting Charlie's overflowing eyes as his own orgasm makes him grit his teeth and lose sensation in his toes.

He doesn't stay afterwards. Sleepy, sex-sated Charlie is too much like the lover that Don can't want. The tenderness will destroy them both in ways the sex won't.

After he's dressed, the only comfort he can give is to pet Charlie's curls one last time. "It will be all right," he whispers, only briefly meeting Charlie's widening eyes before he leaves.

He lets himself out of the garage before he makes the mistake of saying something else, something that might be mistaken for giving Charlie hope.

There is no hope for Granger -- no matter what redemption he might seek behind bars.

Just as there is no hope for them.

{end}


End file.
